No crab more active in the dirty dance,
Downward to climb, and backward to advance; 320
He brings up half the bottom on his head,
And loudly claims the journals and the lead.
The plunging prelate and his pond'rous grace,
With holy envy gave one layman place.
When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood,
Slow rose a form in majesty of mud;

325

Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,
And each ferocious feature grim with ooze.

Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares;
Then thus the wonders of the deep declares.

First he relates how, sinking to the chin,

330

Smit with his mein, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in ;
How young Lutetia, softer than the down,
Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown,

REMARKS.

v. 323. The plunging prelate, &c.] It having been invidiously insinuated that by this title was meant a truly great prelate, as respectable for his defence of the present balance of power in the civil constitution, as for his opposition to the scheme of no power at all in the religious, I owe so much to the memory of my deceased friend as to declare, that when, a little before his death, I informed him of this insinuation, he called it vile and malicious: as any candid man, he said, might understand, by his having paid a willing compliment to this very prelate in another part of the poem.

1

Vy'd for his love in jetty bow'rs below,

As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago.

335

Then sung, how shown him by the nut-brown maids,
A branch of Styx here rises from the shades,
That tinctur'd as it runs with Lethe's streams,

And wafting vapours from the land of dreams, 340 (As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice

Bears Pissa's offerings to his Arethuse)

345

Pours into Thames; and hence the mingled wave
Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave :
Here brisker vapours o'er the temple creep;
There all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep.
Thence to the banks where rev'rend bards repose
They led him soft; each rev'rend bard arose ;
And Milbourn chief, deputed by the rest,

Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest.

350

"Receive," he said, "these robes which once were mine;

"Dulness is sacred in a sound divine."

REMARKS.

v. 349. And Milbourn.] Luke Milbourn, a clergyman, the fairest of critics; who, when he wrote against Mr. Dryden's Virgil, did him justice in printing at the same time his own translations of him, which were intolerable. His manner of writing has a great resemblance with that of the gentlemen of the Dunciad against our author, as will be seen in the parallel of Mr. Dryden and him.

744552

He ceas'd, and spread the robe; the crowd confess
The rev'rend flamen in his lengthen'd dress.
Around him wide a sable army stand,

A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band,
Prompt or to guard or stab, or saint or damn;
Heav'n's Swiss, who fight for any god or man.

355

Through Lud's fam'd gates, along the well-known
Fleet,

Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street,
Till show'rs of sermons, characters, essays,
In circling fleeces whiten all the ways:
So clouds, replenish'd from some bog below,
Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow.

361

Here stopt the goddess, and in pomp proclaims 365 A gentler exercise to close the games.

"Ye critics! in whose heads, as equal scales,

"I weigh what author's heaviness prevails;
"Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers,
"My H......ley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers;
"Attend the trial we propose to make:

"If there be man who o'er such works can wake,
"Sleep's all-subduing charms who dares defy,
"And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye;
"To him we grant our amplest pow'rs to sit
"Judge of all present, past, and future wit;
"To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong,
"Full and eternal privilege of tongue."

371

375

Three college sophs, and three pert templars came,
The same their talents, and their tastes the same;
Each prompt to query, answer, and debate,
And smit with love of poesy and prate.

The pond'rous books two gentle readers bring;
The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring.

381

386

The clam'rous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum,
Till all tun'd equal send a gen'ral hum.
Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone
Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on;
Soft creeping words on words the sense compose,
At ev'ry line they stretch, they yawn, they doze. 390
As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low
Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow;
Thus oft they rear, and oft the head decline,
As breathe, or pause, by fits, the airs divine.
And now to this side, now to that they nod,

395

As verse, or prose, infuse the drowsy god.
Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak, but thrice suppress'd
By potent Arthur, knock'd his chin and breast.

REMARKS.

v. 397. Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak.] Famous for his speeches on many occasions about the South Sea scheme, &c. "He is a very ingenious gentleman, and hath written "some very excellent epilogues to plays, and one small "piece on love, which is very pretty." Jacob, Lives of

400

Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer,
Yet silent bow'd to Christ's no kingdom here.
Who sat the nearest, by the words o'ercome,
Slept first; the distant nodded to the hum,
Then down are roll'd the books; stretched o'er 'em
lies

Each gentle clerk, and mutt'ring seals his eyes.
As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes,
One circle first and then a second makes ;
What Dulness dropt among her sons imprest
Like motion from one circle to the rest:
So from the midmost the nutation spreads

405

Round and more round, o'er all the sea of heads. 410
At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail,
Motteux himself unfinish'd left his tale.

REMARKS.

Poets, vol. II, p. 289. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well known to the greatest statesmen of all parties, as well as to all the courts of law in this nation.

v. 399. Toland and Tindall.] Two persons, not so happy as to be obscure, who writ against the religion of their country. Toland, the author of the atheist's liturgy, called Pantheisticon, was a spy, in pay, to lord Oxford. Tindal was author of The Rights of the Christian Church, and Christianity as old as the Creation. He also wrote an abusive pamphlet against carl S-, which was suppressed while yet